


My Side of the Bed

by StrandsofNehn



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Asra killed me with the update, F/M, Introspection, Living Together, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 20:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12328413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrandsofNehn/pseuds/StrandsofNehn
Summary: A blurb from the Apprentice about their bed. And Asra.Written from 1st POV (which was painful) but I’m trying to stay true to canon writing! So pronoun neutral.





	My Side of the Bed

I wake on my side of the bed with that familiar, tight feeling in my chest. Something is... missing. 

Every night I fall asleep in the middle of my bed and every morning I wake curled on one side— like my sleeping self awaits a bedmate and makes room.

I’ve never shared a bed before.

Yet, when the first of wakefulness tugs at me, I will seek an arm around my waist that isn’t there. Try to curl my fingers around someone else’s. And sometimes even press a kiss to an absent palm.

It is _maddening_ that I don’t have an explanation for why my heart breaks just a little more every morning. When the echo of it sings as I groggily realize: there’s no one beside me. When I reach out and nothing— _no one_ — is there.

But I know, with all the surety of the suns rays trailing in from my bedroom window atop the shop, that heartbreak is a daily hurt.

It's been years and like most things given time, it’s become routine. The hairline cracks in my heart that tortured me with such profound loss are just... part of the decoupage now.

But the splintering does make it difficult to feel whole. Makes it feel like my heart is a cup with too many cracks to hold that life giving tea I chase that morning hurt down with everyday. And every time I try it hurts, that warmth hurts. Like hot water rushing through the holes of my heart faster than the flower tea can even open: I’m left with the messy aftermath of trying.

But, nothing— nothing _fits._

I tried mastery of my magic. I tried potions. I tried enchantments. I tried tea. I tried bangles and rings until I really needed to stop or I’d have no visible skin on my arms or legs left. I did readings and brewed love potions and smiled and advised and expertly guided miffed customers out of our home.

I did everything I could think of.

But, it’s never felt right. Calling it my home. It’s ours. Our home. Before... it didn’t feel like home before. Not by myself.

That was the first time I thought I may have found it. That thing that fits. I thought I continued to find it. In the feeling of silk-spun hair between my fingers, the softness of a smile, the blush of fondness in a beloved face.

Sometimes, I still think so. If I let myself.

But, then, it’s gone. On trips of self discovery and mystery that I don’t get to know about. Or learn about. Or hear about. Or _glimpse_.

It scurries in and out my door like a stray cat that I don’t know how and would never wish to tame but think on just the same.

I immediately feel awful for those thoughts. Thoughts on what to do, what to say, so that it would stay; that feeling of “ _Not so empty ,”_ of _“_ _Closer_ _. So, so much closer.”_ But…

 _“ Out .”_ and _, “ Soon .”_ are hated words in my world.

But what leave do I have to explain why? How can I say that the reason I’m so frustrated when he gives me those not-answers is because I feel a little more like myself and little less lost when he’s around? A little more like the person I may have been once?

How many times have I stopped myself from asking if there is a reason for that?

Because what _if_?

What if there is a reason for that?

What if he wakes up with a hand reaching out only to grasp nothing at all? What if his chest caves in every morning like mine does? What if he feels like the day will never be a good day because how could it be? With this feeling of such jolting and heart wrenching wrongness?

_(Without you?)_

Does he wake to the echo of that feather-crack from his chest cavity in his ears? That empty, ringing _, “...oh.”_

We’ve never spoken of why I cannot remember a thing before meeting him.

I wondered if it is because of him. A lot when I first met him. Less now. Now, now I wonder if it is because of me. My own choices. Ones I can no longer remember.

How long have we known each other?

 _How_ do we know each other?

What did I mean to him?

What did he mean to _me_ ?  
  
Gods, did we mean _that_ to each other?  
  
Am I mad to think so?  
  
Because there is an ache in my heart every morning that eases just the smallest fraction when I hear him humming in the next room.  
  
Because sometimes, sometimes I swear I can see the smallest, relieved slump of his shoulders when I walk in, rubbing the sleep from my eyes?  
  
I want to ask. I so desperately want to know. I may be without memory of my own past but I’m not mad. And I’m not wrong. I’m almost certain I’m not wrong.  
  
But what then? What if the answer _is_ yes?  
  
Even if he danced around it, even if he didn’t tell me the truth, what if the answer is _yes_ ?  
  
How could I possibly ask him to remember what I will never recall? Ask him to undergo the agony of reliving the days that we were together. The days that we may have puttered around this shop with more than just bemused glances. When we may have brushed hands and laughed at inside jokes lost to me now, when there may have been a tease and a smirk full of promise.  
  
Ask him and then go back to... this.  
  
I couldn’t possibly. That’s how.  
  
So, every morning, I will lay here, listening to the hairline fractures in my heart grow bit by marginal bit. Here, on my side of the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Also, should I write from a diff POV in the future? It felt weird to me but ya know... I try to stay true to how canon does things. Did it bother you? Take away from it? Let me know! And let me know what you think of it otherwise!! 
> 
> I thrive off of feedback. 
> 
> <3


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